Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-24
FREAKS OF THE INSANE.
Some Of the LudicrOus Expressions OF
the DemeDtsd-Unconsci o rs eomi-
caliiy OF Crazy Jokers.
Nothing too Absurd to be Believed by n Lu
autobiography of MnnOmRniacs
Extravagant Fancy
The Enoch.

sumo the role of jokers. They make
horrible puEs, ask conundrums and get
of poor wItticisms. But it is their I'M
conscious comicality that makes them
most laughsble; and its effect is doubled
by the gravity OF mein and tone with
which they utter their whimsical con.
ceits, and which every lecturer of
the humorous species must envy
them. One day when the present
writer was attending a lecture on
mental diseases in an asylum, the profes-
gor brought in q patient suffering from
Illusions. e his imagination distorted
everything he saw into something differ
ent. where are your" the professor
asked the patient. "In a menagerie,"
was the answer. "And what are these
beings7" the professor asked, pointing to
the students. The answer was consist
ent: "Lions and tigers and bears"
When the students laughed aloud at this
unexpected geological diagnosis, the pa
tie:t insisted that the animals were now
roaring"
frequently patients consider them
selves partially or entirely transformed
into animals or superior beings. One
woman mentioned by Kraft-Ebng in
sisted that her feet had been changed
into hoofs and her head into an ox's
head. A young man became convinced
in the course of his disease that he was
the devil, so he refused to take food in
order to starVe the tend. An Austrian
patient insisted that he had lost his eyes,
and wanted to 90 to London to get
a new pair. Being retained against
his will ne refused to eat anything on the
ground that Bismarck had poisoned his
food and that million gods had warned
him against it.
NOTHING rs TOO ABSURD.
It often happens, as in dreams, that in
animate objects appear to the patient to
be alive. A tower opposite an aged luna
tics window was taken by him for the
"world SOUL" One day he saw the tower
move away, and voice came from it
which cursed him for having destroyed
the world. Nothing is too absurd to be
believed by the demented. One patient
having maltreated another, was taken to
task and questioned as to mis- motive. He
FINELY confessed that the other man
"wanted to come into my ward to build
chimney six miles high, and l pushed
him down stairs" "In one case that
was under my charge" says Dr.. Ham
mond, "the patient, ststioner, doing
business in this city, had the delusion
that unknown enemies-Freemason
were acting on him by electricity, which
they sent into his brain, through the top
OF his head, by powerful batteries which
they had in their lodge rooms. In an
other woman conceived that
all the iron ratings and railway tracks
had been charged with electricity in order
10 injure her,
Great ingenuity is often shown by mon
omanlacs in trying to justify their ludi-
crous beliefs. DR.. Harmon knew q
man who believed that his right hand was
made OF glass, and who therefore carried
it in q stout case to prevent It's being
broken. When the doctor tried to con-
vince him that his hand was flesh and
blood, and not glass, he retorted: 81
once thought just as you do. My brain
was then incapable of spprecisting minute
differences as well as 1t can now; and,
though | confess that my senses still con-
vey to me the idea that my hand
is like other peoples, yet 1 know
that the conception is erroneous, and
correct it at once by my reason. My
hand looks like flesh and blood, but it's
glass for all that. Nothing is more cal
culated TO deceive than the senses"
ENDURANCE OF FANCY.
Among Professor Krafft-Ebing's
patients was one who felt badly
used because they would not give
him needle and thread to sew
on his head, which he maintained
had been severed from his body with
fine cord by negro. The same
man considered himself great magician,
and told Of his ventures in quest Of the
north pole, which he found by going
down into Vesuyius. A woman in the
same hospital previous to her admission
had purchased half finished umbrella,
saying that she was going to Cline it with
new religion" which reminds one of
the late Emil Scarla of Vienna, the ia
nous bassO, who, short time before his
malady was discovered, went to a tailor
and ordered fur overcoat for summer
use, adding that it must be lined with
electric light
Wi b sun, moon and stars, lunstics are
on very familiar terms. One patient
heard noise which she maintained was
caused by the rolling about of the real
terrestrial GLOBE under her bed. Another
declared that she fell from the moon
twenty-four years ago. There she loved
the King of France, who was shot on the
moon. The director of the asylum lived
opposite her on the moon But the most
extraordinary eXUberance of fancy was
shown bya demented officer who con-
sideTed himself the ruler of the world
He also clsimed to be the great
est opera singer in the world,
and said he had travelled around
the earth with ladies' IN car
riage drawn by 500 horses whose sta
bles Were made of diamonds. He was
willing to share the earth with another
patient alter dividing it up ST the equator.
Then she intended 10 divide up Heaven
similarly, and take s drive IN the lava OF
FesuYius, inasmuch as he was fireD -oof. /
He Intended to erect statue 1000, OOO,-
600 yards in height, made of pure ola
mOnds. He amused himself by shooting
down stars from the armament, and then
he was going to make new planets by
condensing gases and Inclosing them in q !
crust. He was always arranging for teIe-
graphic and other communication with
the moon and the stars, and was exceed |
ingly anxious TO see the pretty girls who |
would come down 10 US from Venus and |
Juno.
That doctors, like shoemskers, should |
stick to their last was the opinion con-
veyed to DR.. Hammond by one of his pa
tents. Before he left he began to speak
in staccato way: "I-think-I shall
tonight -tO-see
Booth-in = Hamlet" The Doctor
asked him why ne spoke in that manner.
He replied: -I-choose-to-
do-and-ta t.
as choose to speak"
"But," said the Doctor, sit is silly way
Of talking" "I-came-to-you-fo
MISUNDERSTANDING for-s-les-
on-in-el-c-cu-t